Ireland’s Local Government Computer Services Board (LGCSB) is among the first organisations to sign up to Microsoft’s newly announced Solutions Sharing Network, an information and collaboration portal for the public sector.
The Solutions Sharing Network is a global initiative intended to promote increased communication, greater exchange of information and collaboration between government bodies, academic institutions and other public sector agencies.
According to Microsoft, it will act as a forum for public sector partners and customers to share its unique IT solutions, architectures, best practices, application source code that governments own, as well as research to increase efficiencies and reduce long-term development costs.
In the public sector, there is a wide range of technologies – including Microsoft technologies – used by governments across the globe. Duplicate development efforts exist across many agencies and countries. Microsoft said that the Solutions Sharing Network would help to increase operational efficiencies and lower the costs of e-government.
The Solutions Sharing Network is a hosted, catalogued knowledge repository. A typical Solutions Sharing Network environment will include a web portal allowing access to hosted knowledge and solutions, an open forum for public sector partners to contribute and showcase their solutions and capabilities, mechanisms for searching, rating and cataloguing the best discussions and solutions.
Tim Willoughby, assistant director with the LGCSB, said: “All government agencies share common technological and administrative challenges. By providing the Shared Solutions Network, local government in Ireland has been able to establish a valuable knowledge bank that will bring tremendous benefit to our community.”
By Gordon Smith
